This past week the world learned of possible irreversible damage done to the burial mask of King Tut when its beard was broken off and hastily glued back on. With that accident featured prominently in the news, we thought we would post the Top 5 Art Museum Disasters Ever.

NUMBER 5

A masterpiece of the “drip” technique and among the largest of Jackson Pollock’s paintings, One: Number 31, 1950 hung upside down at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for seventeen years before someone realized it. The painting was turned upright in 1983.

Below: Pollock's One: Number 31, 1950 hung upside-down at the MOMA for seventeen years.

Below:The painting was turned upright in 1983 after an art student from Tuscaloosa, AL, noticed the problem.

NUMBER 4

In 2004, museum guards at the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, were taking their 10:00 a.m. break for Fiskesuppe (a white, milk-based fish soup with pickled herring and vegetables) when two armed men in black ski masks stole Edvard Munch's masterpiece The Scream right off the wall!

Fortunately, though, with 8,437 art museums in the world, after the theft of painting from the Munch Museum, the remaining 8,436 art museums all had a version of Munch's The Scream so the public was still able to view the painting.

Pictured at the left: Edvard Munch's The Scream, one of the most recognized paintings in Western art.

NUMBER 3

For the spring and summer of 2014, the Whitney Museum in New York City planned a retrospective on the works of Jeff Koons. However, after the works were collected, they were erroneously delivered to the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) in Dedham, Massachusetts. The exhibit at MOBA ran for two months before someone realized the mistake, so the Whitney retrospective was changed to run throughout the summer and fall.

Pictured above: A work by Jeff Koons featured in the Koons retrospective at both the Museum of Bad Art and the Whitney.

Pictured at the left: The entrance to MOBA, the Museum of Bad Art. A poster on the door announces "Jeff Koons: A Retrospective." The show ran for two months before someone realized the works should have been delivered to the Whitney Museum in New York City.

NUMBER 2

Workers from a carpet steaming company were cleaning the carpets of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo when they knocked King Tut's priceless burial mask off its pedestal. As a result, the beard on the mask broke off, and repairmen hastily glued it back on before the museum re-opened.

Below: Technicians from Shakir's Burial Mask Repair Service in Cairo repair King Tut's beard on the priceless burial mask of Tutankhamun.

﻿﻿﻿Below:﻿﻿﻿ A close-up of the repair of King Tut's beard. The mask was damaged when knocked to the floor by carpet cleaners.

NUMBER 1

The Great Hall of Wax Figures is one of the top attractions at the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum (above the coin-op Laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard) in Washerst, PA, and the wax figure of Qwerty Jean Dickinson, Dickinson's daughter, was a top draw in the exhibit. Unfortunately, though, the wax figure of Qwerty was placed directly above the dryers of the coin-op Laundromat located beneath the museum, and it melted one evening when someone dried numerous large loads of linens. All that remains is a melted portion of her head.

Pictured at the right:The melted remains of the head of Qwerty Dickinson, daughter of Emmett Lee Dickinson, on display at the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum (above the coin-op Laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard).

Pictured at the left: Replicas of the melted head of Qwerty Dickinson are on sale in the gift shop at the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum (above the coin-op Laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard. These reproductions are one of the best selling souvenirs from the museum, and they are very popular keepsakes for children.